


At the end of the day

by TreasureHunter



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Era, Enjolras Survives The Barricade, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29607780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreasureHunter/pseuds/TreasureHunter
Summary: Enjolras survives the barricade.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	At the end of the day

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short story that demanded to be written. It's not part of my series, and consists entirely of Enjolras angst. The title comes from the Les Misérables song of the same name.

Nothing remains to distinguish the street from the countless others surrounding it.

Emaciated children run around, playing some sort of game, and some of them almost knock him over.

He walks with a stick, now, head no longer held straight and defiant, but hunched low between his shoulders. He’s not yet halfway through his twenties, but his blond hair is prematurely grey. In a long black overcoat, he’s more often than not mistaken for one of the countless widowers waiting for death.

He’s not waiting anymore, though. Death found him, fair and square, and turned him away. A long sickbed, for most of which he was delirious, and permanent scars on both in- and outside. A broken shell of a man, not worth a tenth of what he was before.

Those fever dreams seemed more real than this grey reality he doesn’t understand anymore. The compass needle of his convictions, once so sure and strong, is spinning, and he cannot navigate this new life, this second chance he doesn’t deserve. Around every corner he sees a familiar face, one that becomes a stranger when he hurries close. He swears he catches glimpses of his friends from the corner of his eye, but every time he turns around they’re gone. He doesn’t turn very often anymore, these days.

Their barricade is gone, and he experiences a vicious sort of pleasure. The place where he watched all his friends martyr themselves for his cause, persuaded by his words, lives in constantly in his mind’s eye; he doesn’t need a visual reminder. They are dead and he’s alive, he and Marius, and they’ve spoken a few times but with all their friends gone, they have little to say to each other. Forever bound by memory and experience, he doesn’t begrudge Marius his happiness with his bride. Cosette is every bit as kind and sweet as Marius professed that one day in the Musain, but he has no desire to join their perfect fairytale.

They’re worried about him, he knows. He’s supped at their table a few times, leaving early every time. Nausea often finds him and he’s lost weight, though it’s not his wounds that are responsible. Every table now seems too big, with too many empty spaces forever waiting to be filled. Rubbing elbows while eating dinner somehow became the norm, joyous company and rumbling laughter somehow even more vital than the food they consumed.

He approaches the Corinth slowly. The cafe hasn’t reopened, its windows boarded up and door locked with a heavy chain. He dangled up there, not so very long ago, bloodied and defeated. As far as he knows, madame Hucheloup still lives there, though she rarely ventures outside anymore. What became of Matelote and Gibelotte, he doesn’t know. He hopes they survived and found their own happiness far away from this cursed place.

So much death. He never wished for anyone to die, never stopped to truly consider the consequences of his actions. He often spoke of death back then, praised it as the highest honour. He cannot now comprehend his own ignorance and naivety. Having lost the blinds of his eyes, he finally understands what Grantaire meant, all those times he dismissed the other man as cynical.

Having nothing but time now, he nonetheless finds ways to keep his thoughts too busy to turn to the man who in the end shone brighter than the sun. He occupies his mind with the barricade, with all his other friends, with those who died out of conviction instead of desire. He wonders what he could’ve done differently, if he could’ve prevented their deaths at all. The questions hurt, but not as much as the guilt.

He still feels the bullets pierce his chest, hears Grantaire’s soft gasp as he was struck half a second later. He died almost immediately. The horrible loss of Grantaire’s hand slipping from his, lacking the strength to hold on, haunts his dreams every night. He’s turned gaunt and pale and wishes dearly for a dry voice to compare him to the sun that so clearly eclipsed him. He’s burned down, a rapidly cooling mass of iron, confusing and interfering with the true north of his principles.

It’s unlikely he’ll ignite again. Just like the Corinth won’t be the same without people in it, he’ll never recover his conviction. Grantaire was right, in the end. He doesn’t want to know what else Grantaire was right about.

The reason he avoids thinking about him is because once he starts, he cannot stop. Like his rants, the man takes over his thoughts, penetrating and making connections he never would’ve seen on his own. In the gentle dawn he looked radiant as his body stiffened in death. He wonders if that beauty existed beforehand and he simply refused to see it, or if that final moment elevated Grantaire to heights previously undiscovered.

He’s noticed, lately, that whenever he allows himself to think of Grantaire its those final moments that predominate, and he wonders if he’s unwittingly put him on a pedestal, a statue to be admired much like Grantaire so often accused him of being. He wonders whether it’s the actual Grantaire he aches for, or this reconstruction.

Perhaps that is one question he doesn’t have to worry about. Empty days stretch before him, like the open street no longer blocked by a barricade and the threat of revolution. It is cold out, and he tugs his coat closer around him. Pain around his scars remind him it’s time to go inside.

One last look around: he sees a normal street, not different from any other in this quarter, but overlaid with his memory. A barricade rises proud and tall, and the smiling faces of his friends look up at him.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever come back.

His apartment is close by, a little hovel that recently became stocked with bottle upon bottle of cheap liquor. Insufficient to make him forget, he’s looking for their miracle cure. After all, if it worked for Grantaire, he can only hope it’ll work for him as well.


End file.
